1,721,069 research outputs found
ZnII-porphyrinates with a dithienylethylene moiety linked in β-pyrrolic position by different π bridges: a panchromatic-dye approach to PSSCs
Surgical management of ventral and ventrolateral foramen magnum meningiomas: report on a 64-case series and review of the literature.
Foramen magnum meningioma poses a challenge for neurosurgeons. Prognosis has generally improved with diagnostic and surgical advances over the past two decades; however, it may ultimately depend more on the surgeon's ability to tailor the approach and interpret intraoperative risks in single cases. The series comprised 64 patients operated on for ventral and ventrolateral foramen magnum meningioma. All patients underwent preoperative magnetic resonance imaging and received surgery via the dorsolateral route, rendering the series homogeneous in neuroradiological workup and surgical treatment. Particular to this series was that the majority of patients were of advanced age (n = 29; age, >65 years), had serious functional impairment (n = 30, Karnofski score <70), and large tumors (mean diameter, 3.5 cm). Total tumor removal was achieved in 52 (81 %) patients; operative mortality was nil. Early outcome varied depending on difficulties encountered at surgery (cranial nerve position and type of involvement in particular) and type of preoperative dysfunction. Long-tract signs and cerebellar deficits improved in 74 and 77 % of cases, respectively, but only 27 % of cranial nerve deficits did so. Surgical complications most often involved the cranial nerves: cranial nerve impairment, especially of the 9th through the 12th cranial nerves, due to stretching or encasement was noted in 44 cases. At final outcome assessment, two thirds of the cranial nerve deficits cleared, and all but two patients returned to a normal productive life. One patient was reoperated on during the follow-up period. Foramen magnum meningiomas behave like clival or spinal tumors depending on their prevalent extension. A dorsolateral approach tailored to tumor position and extension and meticulous surgical technique allow for definitive control of surgical complications. Scrupulous postoperative care may prevent dysphagia, a major persistent complication of surgery. Long-term observation of indolent tumor behavior at follow-up suggests that incomplete resection may be a viable surgical treatment option
Surgical treatment of parasagittal and falcine meningiomas of the posterior third.
BACKGROUND: To the authors' knowledge, meningiomas of the posterior third of the falx and the parasagittal sinus have never been specifically described to date and correlated visual outcome remains unclear. With this retrospective study we describe the clinical characteristics of these tumours, their surgical management, and the improvement in visual disturbances after surgery. METHODS: Twenty-six consecutive patients (22 females, 4 males; mean age, 54 years) operated on for parasagittal (n = 22) and falcine (n = 4) meningioma between 1990 and 2010 were analysed retrospectively. Preoperative planning included magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance venography (MRV) or angiography. Sinus invasion was classified as normal, stenotic or occluded from the imaging findings and according to the Sindou classification from the intraoperative notes. RESULTS: Visual disturbances and headache (in 21 and 14 cases, respectively) were the most commonly referred symptoms; visual field deficit was present in 19 patients. Simpson grade I was obtained in four patients, grade II in 15, grade III in three, and grade IV in four. The main limiting factor for total removal was sinus involvement. No perioperative deaths or relevant postoperative complications occurred. The mean follow-up was 107 months. Visual field deficit improved or resolved in almost half of the patients during the follow-up period. Three (12\%) patients relapsed, two were treated with Gamma Knife surgery (stable at current writing) and the third died of disease progression. CONCLUSIONS: Outcome after surgery compares favourably with other parasagittal meningioma localisations and overall morbidity is negligible. Visual function is crucial for clinical outcome. Since an improvement of the deficit might still be possible, every effort should be undertaken to preserve the visual cortex
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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